Small groups of teachers will complete a number of individual, pair, and group activities designed to help the explore a wide range of wikis and consider what role they might play in their students' learning.
Tasks:
What is a wiki? (Jigsaw) - Teachers' create own definition
Step 2 - Each teacher adds bullet notes to their resources' notes page
Step 3 - As a group of 4, Draft a definition on main page (have notes show up at the bottom of the main page)
Step 4 - Brainstorm affordances/constraints (make sure they know they'll come back to this later and only need a few ideas)
Step 5 - Handout Affordances/Constraints (Teachers/Students) - 4 quadrant chart for teachers to add notes to as they work on other parts of the workshop
Make sure to hit low floor and wide walls here - "Technology needs to provide us with a low floor (an easy way to get started) and a high ceiling (lots of possibilities for taking things even further). There also needs to be wide walls, so that projects can be extended into other domains ..." Mitch Resnick
Wiki Basics - What project could they do? Profile?
Q & A - Make sure participants know that this should be going on throughout the workshop, not to save their questions for the end. If there are questions that can't be addressed in the moment, model the use of a ThinkTank.
Notes - as written, this is a very fast paced day long workshop. It would probably be better run a bit slower as a two day workshop. This would allow for more depth and time to collaborate on project development. Below are modifications to consider for a two day workshop:
Give teachers more time to look at existing uses of wikis and have them annotate 4-5 wikis/projects
Give teachers time to create the home page of their wiki, welcoming students, parents, and other educators
Demonstrate the use of tags for the navigation panel and give teachers time to implement this technique
Demonstrate the use of tags as a way to quickly create a list of wiki pages
Have educators work in pairs to create two projects, one for each classroom. Having a partner/editor can generate worthwhile discussions, interesting questions, and projects more likely to succeed the first time. It also will result in less technical questions and more time for the facilitator to focus on the projects being designed.
Have educators create a sample project. (They may or may not use this to help the students see what their final project might look like, but it will help them see where students might struggle and need more support or time.)
Have educators determine how they would assess this project and the students' process. (They may not want to assess the students very first project with this new tool, but it could be used for students to reflect on their projects at the end.)
Objectives:
To understand how wikis can be used for curricular projects
To understand the affordances/constraints of wikis
To learn basic wiki editing skills
To modify/create a project to use in the classroom in the next week or two
To observe a few pedagogy/management methods
Assessment:
You could assess the projects teachers design
You could assess the implementation of teachers' projects
You could assess the teachers' reflective editing of their project upon completion with the students
Wikid Wide Walls Workshop
Wiki Workshop(contains some student content, but could easily be modified so most content is student generated)
Discussion:
Jordy Whitmer